Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

Another no-spend day

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

Travelling but my mom’s paying the travel expenses so I had no expenses today.

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

Uni Qlo — $15.50
A cool t-shirt with a cobra graphic — for The Grandson #1 whose birthday is later this month.

Uni Qlo — $39.75
A fabulous light-weight down jacket for — myself!

Parking — $72.00
Can you believe the cost for parking a car for 48 hours?!

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

My mom and I are in The Big Apple (aka New York City) visiting my brother, my sister-in-law, and my niece.  They live in Manhattan just blocks away from Ground Zero.

Today we spent some time doing the tourist thing — shopping for gifts and souvenirs for family back home.  Here’s what I found:

Kate’s Paperie — $5.42
A cool notebook for The Daughter.

cash — $0.75
A bottled water for my mom.

Borders — $10.78
A NYC guidebook.

Pearl River Mart — $53.07

• A silk kimono which will be given as a birthday gift to Granddaughter #1 later this month
• Eye Bod — a cool plastic eyeglasses holder shaped like a funny character — for The Son
• Chinese Take-Out shaped lamp — for The Son’s room

street vendor/cash — $2.50
A Statue-of-Liberty-shaped refrigerator magnet — to add to our collection of fun magnets.

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

I had a no-spend day — in that I didn’t spend any money directly.  My mom and I walked for miles and miles and had a great time, took tons of photos, saw tons of sites, had tons of fun.  And didn’t spend a dime.

However, I did have to make a bank transfer to reimburse The Daughter for two purchases she made:

Old Navy — $19.37
Two shirts for herself.  I’m not sure what type or color because I haven’t seen them yet.  I know that she needs to replace some of her shirts so I have no complaints about this purchase.  Besides, even after this purchase she still has a balance of $221.00 in her clothing allowance.

Borders — $16.16
A book needed for school or a school project.

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

Toll Charges — $12.00
More expressway toll charges.  They’re almost unheard of where I live but here in the East they seem to be a fact of driving life.

McDonald’s — $1.15
Can you believe what they charged me for a single plastic bottle of thoroughly-conventional milk — probably chock full of growth hormones and antibiotics?

Rite-Aid — $15.97

• case of Aqua Fina water bottles — $6.99
• Hagen Daz vanilla ice cream — $3.99
• Pringles potato chips — $1.99 (for my mom)
• 2 Starbucks frappuccino bottles — $1.50/ea. (for my mom)

Sally Beauty Supply — $1.80
A pair of fingernail clippers — and they actually work!  Has anyone else had trouble finding a decent pair of nail clippers since the post-9/11 airline restrictions?

Actually posted on May 4 — still traveling but finally in a location where time and internet access are available at the same time.

Expressway Toll Charges — $8.00
In this part of the country, we made good progress but not without a cost.

Total Spent Today: $3.82

McDonald’s — $3.82
The first day of our drive across the country (me, my mom, and my mom’s dog — aka The Girls).  My mom got a hankering for some Micky D french fries.  I had lunched on a cold leftover buttermilk biscuit with smoked turkey sandwich (quite yummy, actually) and figured I’d have cold cereal for dinner in the hotel.  So I ordered two bottles of milk.

We’re each supposed to be paying for our own food but what kind of woman would begrudge her mother a large order of french fries.  They sure smelled good and I hate the way they remind me of my 100’s of food allergies.

Total Spent Today:  $ 114.77

Net Spent Today: $ 68.70

Advance Auto Parts — ($46.07)
My mom decided that what she liked the best about the Betty Boop floor mats was the dark color — not so much the Betty Boop figure.  At least not $50’s worth.  So we retuned the funky floor mats and $46.07 went back onto my card.

Target — $32.42
A set of four heavy-duty dark grey rubber floor mats to replace the Betty Boop mats.  These are perfect and my mom loves them — eminently more practical and slightly less expensive.  A good solution to the missing floor mat problem.

Kroger — $5.11
A case of Aqua Fina water for our trip across country.

Wild Oats — $77.24

• reading glasses — $17.99 (a less expensive though probably temporary solution to my reading glasses dilemma)
• probiotic — $17.99
• Odwalla Strawberry C Monster — $3.29
• Odwalla B Berrier — $3.29
• 2 Naked Superfood Green drinks — $3.29/ea.
• Applegate Farm organic sliced smoked turkey — $6.69
• Applegate Farm organic sliced roast beef — $6.69
• 1.12 lbs Fuji apples — $2.23
• 1.26 lbs organic bananas — $1.12
• .79 lbs Pink Lady apples — $2.36
• bag of baby carrots — $1.99
• .36 lbs bulk gorp — $.32
• 2 packaged dry soup bowls — $1.59/ea.
• bag credits — ($0.10)

Total Amount Spent: $50.35 

Yesterday’s trip to the car wash, fairly expensive in it’s own right, got a little more expensive today.

This morning, while driving home with my from the closest drive-thru Starbucks window (her coffee habit, she paid), I looked down for some reason and realized that I’d left her passenger-side floor mat at the car wash.  That immediately triggered one of those sick-sinking-stomach feelings.  I took the longer route home in order to swing by the car wash hoping against hope that I’d find that mat sitting right there next to the vacumms where I’d left it.

No such luck.

I made a circle looking around and then pulled back into the bay to write down the contact number for the wash — when from out of the service door comes the car wash owner himself.  I asked if he’d found the mat.  A quick look produced an unhappy, “no.”  Then he helped me check the dumpster.  Not there either.  I was, as they say in the biz, S.O.L.

Naturally, there’s an Advanced Auto Parts right there in the same strip mall.  I was hoping that maybe they stocked replacement OEM floor mats but luck simply was not with me today.  all they had were the generic sets.

Just as a joke I pointed out the Tweety Bird mat sets and said we should get them.  My mom — almost 70 and of European birth and upbringing and violently anti-Disney and anti-animation — laughed and then noticed the Betty Boop mat set.  Can you believe, that’s the set she picked?  I was surprised she even recognized the Betty Boop character!

Naturally on the way to check out, I spied a Betty Boop keychain that was essential to round-out the ridiculousness of the fashion statement we were about to make.

After the deal was done, both my mom and I were surprised at the total — $50.35.  Neither of us had realized that the small backseat mats were sold separately.  The front mat set cost $26.88, each back mat cost $7.97, and the keychain was another $3.98.

We left all of the tags and packaging intact so was can return them if and when sanity makes a comeback.